Interview by Joan Schweighardt • Five Directions Press • December 31, 2019
Lynn C. Miller is a writer, a playwright, a performer, an instructor, the cofounder of a magazine, and so much more. Her life in the performing and literary arts shines a bright light not only on her own creativity but also on the creativity of the several women whose stories she has written and/or converted into stage adaptions. Hers is the kind of curious and empathetic mind that makes such feats possible—and such a pleasure for readers and theatre audiences.
What is your new novel about and when will it launch?
The new novel, The Unmasking, interweaves mystery, women’s history, and academic satire. Its main characters also appeared in two of my other novels, The Fool’s Journey and Death of a Department Chair. In this one, the characters journey to Silver City, NM to participate in performances of famous women from history: Gertrude Stein, Edith Wharton (here those two appear again getting back to your second question!), Virginia Woolf, Mabel Dodge Luhan, and Victoria Woodhull. Hanging over them is the suspicious death of their college dean, an event they conclude was a murder. Complications ensue when the dean’s widow and her lover attend the festival. The book is a lively twist on the locked-room mystery as the characters are thrown together in the close confines of the lodge. The figures in the past have conflicts that shadow the characters in the present.
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